January 10, 2015 (La Mesa) –Anwar al-Awlaki, a former cleric at a mosque on the La Mesa-San Diego boundary and ex-student at San Diego State may have inspired the jihadist brothers who massacred 12 people at the French magazine Charlie Hebdo. Awlaki was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in September 2011 and was believed by U.S. authorities to have been a terrorist mastermind tied to the 9/11 attacks and many other terror plots around the world.

Cherif Kouachi , one of two brothers who reportedly gunned down journalists at Charlie Hebdo, was later killed by police following a massive manhunt in Paris. Before he died, Koachi told BFM-TV, “I was sent, me, Cherif Koachi, by Al Qaeda of Yemen. I went over there and it was Anwar al Awlaki who financed me.” Reuters reports that the statement was recorded and aired on French television.

Editorial originally published in Le Monde January 8, 2015 and on the U.S. Embassy website in Paris

January 9, 2015 (Paris)--Wednesday’s barbaric attack on the journalists and staff of Charlie Hebdo, as well as on policemen guarding them, shocked and saddened the entire world. As we pause to mourn the loss of life, I am reminded of how the people of France showed their support to us in the aftermath of 9/11. On September 11, Americans were in a state of shock as we tried to come to grips with that terrible loss and our own grief and a growing sense that our world would be different from that moment on. I remember seeing Le Monde’s headline that day: “We are all Americans”, and how much those words meant to me that day as an American, a New Yorker and a friend of France.

January 7, 2015 (Paris)--Crowds around the world are standing up and journalists are speaking out to show solidarity with journalists slain at a French satirical magazine in Paris on Wednesday by Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. The dead include the publication’s editor, other journalists including prominent cartoonists, and two police officers.